Brands Hatch BTCC: Tom Onslow-Cole captures pole in thriller

Onslow-Cole's WSR BMW suffered a broken throttle cable at the start of the session, while Jason Plato's works MG and then Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Honda Civic set the early pace.

After a red flag, caused by Chris James (ES Racing Vauxhall Vectra) going off at Surtees, championship contender Matt Neal moved to pole in his Honda Civic.

With 10 minutes to go, Onslow-Cole - BMW now repaired - went quickest with 1m31.867s, then improved to 1m31.719s.

Jordan moved to second, then went on to a final flyer just before the chequered flag came out. He briefly moved to the top of the times with 1m31.703s, but Onslow-Cole was just a few car lengths back and snatched pole back with 1m31.615s.

Neal had a big slide at Paddock Hill Bend on his final effort, but the reigning champion's earlier time was good enough for third.

Rob Collard also made a late charge to make it two WSR BMWs in the top four.

Title contender Jason Plato will line up fifth. The MG driver had improved to fourth in the closing moments, but then spun at Paddock and was jumped by Collard while he sat in the gravel.

Adam Morgan was the top Toyota driver, bringing his Speedworks car to sixth.

Championship leader Gordon Shedden will only start seventh in his 45kg ballast-laden works Civic.

He just failed to make it through to start a final flyer as the flag came out, but would not have improved as he would have had to go through yellow flags for Plato's incident.

Another star of the session, in which the top 13 were covered by just one second, was Aaron Williamson. The former Ginetta racer will start eighth for his BTCC debut in Tony Gilham's S2000 Honda Civic.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car           Time        Gap
 1.  Tom Onslow-Cole  WSR BMW            1m31.615s
 2.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Honda     1m31.703s   + 0.088s
 3.  Matt Neal        Honda              1m31.916s   + 0.301s
 4.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW            1m32.172s   + 0.557s
 5.  Jason Plato      MG                 1m32.197s   + 0.582s
 6.  Adam Morgan      Speedworks Toyota  1m32.200s   + 0.585s
 7.  Gordon Shedden   Honda              1m32.223s   + 0.608s
 8.  Aaron Williamson HARD Civic         1m32.352s   + 0.737s
 9.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford     1m32.400s   + 0.785s
10.  Dave Newsham     ES Vauxhall        1m32.422s   + 0.807s
11.  Aron Smith       Motorbase Ford     1m32.444s   + 0.829s
12.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW            1m32.544s   + 0.929s
13.  Will Bratt       Austin Audi        1m32.608s   + 0.993s
14.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota     1m32.622s   + 1.007s
15.  Lea Wood         Wood Vauxhall      1m32.799s   + 1.184s
16.  Rob Austin       Austin Audi        1m32.832s   + 1.217s
17.  Daniel Welch     Welch Proton       1m32.965s   + 1.350s
18.  Ollie Jackson    AmD Volkswagen     1m32.994s   + 1.379s
19.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Honda     1m33.082s   + 1.467s
20.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford     1m33.534s   + 1.919s
21.  Andy Neate       MG                 1m33.673s   + 2.058s
22.  Chris James      ES Vauxhall        1m35.466s   + 3.851s
23.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota  1m36.156s   + 4.541s
24.  Tony Gilham      Thorney Vauxhall   -           -